It’s Week Two. Reality has started to set in. We get a look at our schedule and think, was I nuts? Am I even on the right track?

Keep going.

But I’m not a novelist! I’m not even a NaNoist. How was I kidding? This is silly. I don’t even know where my story is going!

Keep going.

But Thanksgiving is coming.

I have kids and I can’t concentrate with them underfoot. I’ll be a bad parent!

I’m too busy at work.

I’m not a novelist.

This is goofy. Fifty thousand words of what?

Is this any good?

Will it sell?

Who am I kidding?

Keep going.

The secret to NaNo, if there is a secret, is that the way to write a novel is to write a novel. The only way to do that, is to put words in front of each other until you’re ready to type “the end.”

NaNo teaches us to experiment.

The idea of a rough draft is just that: it’s rough. It’s not perfect. It’s not something we will run out and slap up on the internet. No secret cabal is out to take your baby novel and throw it to the wolves of harsh critique. This is a draft. A draft is supposed to be rough.

You can’t edit what you ain’t writ.

In order to get to the final draft, you have to have a draft to edit. You can’t have a draft to edit unless you write one. So tell your inner critic you’ll buy them bourbon, or chocolate, or whatever bribe works, but right now, you’re writing.

Keep going.

One thing I hear a lot of around now is, “where are we supposed to be?” I ask, “What do you mean?” “Number! How many words am I supposed to have?”

Ignore the number and keep going.

Staring at the number is like trying to lose weight while living on a scale. It doesn’t work. It just makes us nuts. Don’t worry about word count. Don’t even worry about NaNo. Just make a play-date with you and your baby novel. Spend time with it. Name it. Sing a lullaby to it. “Baby, you and me are gonna go places | Oh the places we’ll go | Baby, just you and me and a keyboard makes three | Baby you’re comin’ home with me!” ~la la la~

How do you get to the finish line?

Keep going.

–

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”
- E.E. Cummings

Poem

by Shannon Kelsey

Do you hear the Wrimos type?
Writing the words of their novels?
It is the click clack of the keyboards
That will not lose to Detroit!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the pounding of the keys
There is a war about to end
When Chicago wins!

Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and write with me?
Within your active mind
Is there a world you long to write?

Then join in the fight
That will drop all Detroit to their knees!

Do you hear the Wrimos type?
Writing the words of their novels?
It is the click clack of the keyboards
That will not lose to Detroit!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the pounding of the keys
There is a war about to end
When Chicago wins!

Will you write all you can write
So that our word count ma advance?
Some will plot and some will plan
Or write by the seat of their pants
Chicago get writing
So Detroit cannot stand a chance!

Do you hear the Wrimos type?
Writing the words of their novels?
It is the click clack of the keyboards
That will not lose to Detroit!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the pounding of the keys
There is a war about to end
When Chicago wins!!

I’m so pleased to share with you, Dear Wrimo, the success of one of our very own ChiWrimo, Alyson Grauer. Her NaNo novel On the Isle of Sound and Wonder is available from Amazon. Aly will be at Geek Bar Chicago this Saturday, November 7th; check it out and register to attend on the Facebook event page. Aly answered some interview questions for me; read on!

CWM: What was your inspiration for this book and the main characters?

AG: As an actor, I often delve into the history and given circumstances of characters and stories within plays. I imagine the memories and the in between moments you don’t see onstage, and I wonderwhat would be different if the play was set in another place or time. When I started writing Sound & Wonder, I had just re-read The Tempest and found it complex and confusing; Shakespeare presented it as this commedia dell’arte influenced comedy but in the play itself you can see how dark the emotional lives of the characters can be and how dire the circumstances are that bring them all together this way. I wanted to explore those circumstances by giving the story and characters lives of their own beyond (but including) what Shakespeare wrote. I didn’t want to re-do it or overwrite it, I just wanted to explore a parallel trajectory. A world just slightly to one side of our own, with familiar things in it, but its own history and magic and scope.

CWG: Where is your story set and why is this setting exciting/sexy?

AG: Sound & Wonder was challenging for setting. I knew exactly how it would need to be: their equivalent of Italy, and an island somewhere in the Mediterranean. But how do you do steampunk on a barely habitable uncivilized island? My solution was not to make the island itself steampunk, but allow the characters to interact with the environment in a steampunk sort of way. Mira is quite the engineer and architect, and although the island is something of a prison to her, she studies it, annotates it, manipulates it like a scholar or scientist would. My editor Jess and I half-jokingly called it “islandpunk”. The island is so cool – it has a variable landscape and even after living there for twelve years, Mira is still surprised by things that crop up… You may notice too that each set of characters experiences and describes slightly different views and terrains on the island – that was intentional.

CWG: What’s the story behind your book’s title?

AG: This title was the working title when I wrote the first draft during NaNoWriMo 2012. searched and searched for a line from the play that would work as a title but nothing satisfied me. When I sold the book to Xchyler Publishing we briefly tossed around the idea of changing it, but it just stuck. Sometimes titles just stick. To me, the title is about the island of course, which is in some ways a character as well as the setting, but it also unintentionally echoes “sound and fury,” which is not only Faulkner but Shakespeare as well (a line from Macbeth). Dante is sometimes more like Macbeth than Prospero, to me. So it’s a happy coincidence.

CWG: What subgenres do you write in and who are you published with?

AG: Steampunk, fantasy, spec fic, sci-fi, etc. I have two short stories and this novel through Xchyler Publishing, and two short stories through Imagine That Studios — the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences’ Tales From The Archives anthologies.

CWG: Plotter or Pantser?

AG: Both. I was a pantser for a loooong time (and happily so) but editing Sound and Wonder was a lot of work, and some of my other projects have taught me that Plotting/outlining/preparation can be super important depending on the story.

Blurb: All but alone, wild but resourceful, Mira dreams of life beyond the shores of her mystical island. Isolated by her father, a dark sorcerer bent on vengeance, she has only his servants, an air spirit and a misshapen cast-off, to share her company. When Dante conjures a terrible storm to wash ashore his mortal enemies, Mira must chose between her loyalties to her father and what she knows is right.

Sail the skies and soar the seas surrounding this Isle of Sound and Wonder as Alyson Grauer masterfully retells William Shakespeare’s classic, The Tempest, bedecked in the trappings of Steampunk.

I’ve been doing NaNo for a few years now (six) and I’ve won a few times (four). I don’t consider the two years where I didn’t hit goal to be “losses.” If I’ve learned anything in this business, it’s to keep writing. All words count during NaNo.

We learn from the years we win NaNo.

The years where we make it across the finish line teach us that hard work pays off and that we can do it, we can write the first draft of a novel. We also learn that non-writers don’t understand. “So, you’ve written fifty thousand words. Yeah, but are they any good?” is said with a sly kind of smile, as though the questioner thinks they’ve delivered a witty comeback to our, “I won NaNo!” They haven’t. The point is, it’s a rough draft. It’s not supposed to be polished.

We learn from the years we don’t win NaNo.

Sometimes, we learn more from the years we don’t hit the mark than the years we do. One of the years I didn’t win, it was because I had a huge family gathering to attend over Thanksgiving. I figured I could bang out the remaining ten thousand words in the two days when I got back, a Monday and a Tuesday. I had time after work both evenings and even wrote it into my calendar.

Then work happened.

I won’t bore you with the gory details, but I worked for a very toxic boss (for whom I thankfully no longer work) and he made those two days into a walking hell. By the time I left the office, near tears each evening, I didn’t want to do anything, much less touch my fledgling novel. Disappointed and discouraged, I watched midnight on the 30th come and go and never got my winner’s badge that year.

An odd thing happened, though. The next year, I came out of the gate so strong that I would have bowled over anything standing in my way. I had found a new job, was on my way to becoming a “real” author (meaning I had a publishing contract), and I felt like I finally knew what I was doing. When I crossed that finish line, it felt differently than before. This time, I was aware of the struggle it took to get there.

I realized my NaNo “failure” wasn’t a failure at all.

We talk a lot about how NaNo teaches us to write a draft of a novel. What is less talked-about is the fact that NaNo teaches us how to fit writing into our lives – and I have yet to meet someone whose life isn’t already full of all the things.

Writing is a difficult pursuit because it’s, in essence, solitary. Humans by nature are social animals, be they extroverts or introverts. Sure, the appearance of socializing looks different for different people, but we all need human contact. We need to create support systems around ourselves that sustain and nurture us, and we need to limit toxic inputs in order to sustain our creativity.

So yeah, in a way, NaNo helped me quit that toxic job. I didn’t do it immediately, and I had some bumps along the road between then and now. But overall, it made me stronger – and a better writer.

And that’s my “key takeaway” as they say in business. (And the language crafters among you, Dear Reader, are cringing at my use of jargon.) Keep writing. Let writing be a part of your life, and don’t let other things that are lower on the priority list get in its way. Of course family is important, and if you work a job outside the home then you need to continue to do so. But evaluate the things on which you spend your time, and the people with whom you spend it – do they support you and your goals?

If not, maybe it’s time to reconsider what the priorities are and recommit to getting to fifty thousand.

We can DO this.

Write on!
–

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”
- E.E. Cummings

Writing “Green” Fiction

By Charles Ott

Admittedly, writing fiction is pretty much an environmentally-friendly, low-carbon-impact activity. The biggest source of writers’ airborne carbon emissions probably comes from the intestinal effects of all those unhealthy snacks we eat while writing.

Still, there’s something to be said for being frugal. “Use it up,” as your grandparents knew, “make it last, wear it out.” (I’m a Boomer, and my parents and grandparents lived through the Depression. I remember being in awe, as a kid, when my grandmother drank the pickle juice out of the bottle after all the pickles were gone, rather than let it go to waste.)

So here’s the frugality part: are you wasting characters? Are you making the best use of the minor characters you create for one scene? At first glance, it seems inevitable: if you wrote in a cool bartender for the saloon scene, he seems to be stuck behind the bar and can’t get out into any of your other chapters. The interesting surgeon stays in the hospital scene, the trash-talking sports reporter stays in the locker room (shame on her!), the gang bosses’ punk tough guy says a few menacing words and then fades into the woodwork.

But if you’re having a tough time plotting, consider moving those characters out of their little boxes and into a place where they can interact with your main characters. Surgeons like to knock back a couple of shots sometimes. Could the surgeon show up in the saloon scene? Does the bartender know him as a regular? What would they say to each other when they see your main characters (a) having an important, emotional discussion that reveals information about the story background background, or (b) smashing chairs over each others’ heads as they brawl, or (c) wondering if seeing the surgeon as a regular at the saloon has any relationship to that failed operation on Aunt Beth?

If you liked a minor character in one scene, it might be that that character would light up another scene by appearing unexpectedly. It might be that a minor character might turn into a major character if you will only give him or her a chance. And besides, your minor character already has a name, an appearance and a couple of lines of dialogue to define her personality. What more could you ask for?

One contrarian note to my fellow science-fiction writers: I don’t care how many damn episodes of Star Trek you’ve watched, the captain of a capital ship does not go gallivanting off to have adventures. He stays on his ship pretty much until it returns to home port, if he doesn’t fancy being hauled by the scruff of his neck before the Admiral. Other, more expendable members of the crew get to have all the possibly lethal fun. Ask any Navy veteran about this.

The upshot is, it’s interesting to put an interesting character out-of-position. Try it, and you might just save, if not the Earth, at least your storyline.

Welcome to the dreaded February, the month when sub-zero temperatures attack and there’s no NaNo to sustain us. Whatever shall we do?

For those of you playing the home game, WE WRITE! (Seriously, you didn’t see that one coming???)

All kidding aside, the off months are tough because we don’t have the collective sturm und drang of thousands of participants, pounding away at their keyboards with their hats askew, banging out 50,000 words or more of their novel.

Don’t despair, Dear Chiwrimo! We have resources!

First, there are two mid-year events called Camp NaNo – one in April, and one in July. We even have write-ins planned for both, one on April 11th, and one on July 18th. The links jump you to our Facebook event pages.

Which is a nice segue into my next resource, our Facebook group. (Like how I did that, all transitiony and stuff?) Our little Facebook group has grown to over 800 members! (Thank you, you awesome Chiwrimos, you!) If you haven’t joined yet, what are you waiting for? Visit today and join the conversation – there’s humor, and impromptu writeins, and ideas, and support – everything a growing writer needs to take on the New York Times Bestseller List!

We also have a Twitter stream, @Chiwrimo. If you like brief, and you like it in 140 characters or less, then this is your oyster.

And finally, drum roll please – I found the A-Z Blog Challenge last year while poking around on NaNoWriMo.org (you know, world headquarters?) for ideas on what to do next. It’s a month-long challenge where writers post a blog a day for every day except Sunday, and the only stipulation is you must follow the alphabet theme – so, day 1 is A, day 2 is B, and so on. If this sounds fun, point your browser over there – 2015 signups are now open. Be sure to link to your blog in the comments here so we can track our local writers and support each other.

Write on!

–

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”- E.E. Cummings

I’ve met many people who tell me, “Oh, I failed NaNo. I only got 13,000 words.”

I know writers who would give their eye teeth to have written 13,000 words, 8,000 words, or even just words! Just because you didn’t hit that magic number of 50,000, doesn’t mean you should pack up your keyboard and throw away your word processing software. It doesn’t mean you should go back to Twitter, home of the brief. It just means it’s time to regroup and see where you are. Here are some truths:

1. Writing takes practice. This means, the more you do it, the better you get.

2. Babe Ruth, the baseball player often quoted for his number of home runs, also held a record for strikeouts – the point being, the more times you’re at bat, the more chances of getting a home run. Show up at the page, day in and day out, and you will achieve the goals you set for yourself.

3. You had the courage to start. Don’t underestimate that. Big things come from small things. Give yourself props for having the courage to take a chance and begin something.

4. Now that you’ve tried it, you don’t have to begin from scratch. Yes, you will write new words. But that’s not what I mean. Now you know what NaNo’s all about. This information is power. Maybe you can go into next year with some prep-work ahead of time. Maybe you can spend the next year learning to plot, or develop characters, or fart around with some story communities and see how others do it.

Above all, keep at it. The words you wrote in November are new words that never before saw the light of day. If it weren’t for you, they wouldn’t exist. And that, truly, is magical.

November is over and some of us feel a sense of let-down; like the intensity is gone and we don’t know what to do next. If this is you, you’re not alone. So what do you do, now that you have this baby novel manuscript? What do you DO with it?

Here are a few thoughts about life after NaNo:

You’ve developed a habit of writing. Keep it going. Just because NaNo is over, keep the discipline alive by working on a new idea. Whether your goal, like Hemingway’s, is to write 500 words a day, or Julia Cameron’s 1,000 words a day, keep working on something and use that discipline to change your life for the better.

Some people joke that December is for editing. Others really mean it and dive head-first into their NaNo novel, only to emerge shell-shocked. How can things be this disconnected? This frenzied? This chaotic?

Be gentle. If this is your first time writing a complete rough draft, you need to remember what an accomplishment that is. No one writes the great American novel on the first pass. Even the pros edit. So as you’re looking at this nascent novel, let’s take a step back and have a cup of soothing tea.

First, look at your draft with gentleness. Don’t start cutting and burning large swaths of this savanna. For one thing, years from now, it will matter to you what your first draft looked like. Of course your final product will look different than the rough draft. But just as there’s only ever one first kiss, there’s only ever one first draft. Safeguard it and save it with a new title, something like “Novel title, First draft.” Put that somewhere safe.

It should go without saying, BACKUP YOUR FILES.

No, really. If you haven’t done a backup in the last seven days, stop reading and go do that now. You can come back to read after you’ve finished.

Next, set your manuscript aside for a couple weeks. Experts recommend going away from a piece and coming back to it later, after it’s had a chance to breathe a bit. You’ll be able to look at it with fresh eyes.

Consider rewriting from scratch, not just tweaking the existing piece. Author and instructor Josip Novakovich advocates exactly this technique in his book, Fiction Writer’s Workshop. Retell the story, from scratch, and see how much differently it comes off the keyboard or pen the second time around. Now you know the shape of the story, the twists and turns of your plot, and how to get to the ending.

A word of caution. Some writers assume that they need another pair of eyes on their work pretty much right after they write it. Some authors even recommend that. “Have another person read and critique your work,” they say. “It’ll make you a better writer.” That’s hogwash. Practice is what makes you a better writer. Learning good techniques makes you a better writer. Not all critique groups will teach you those two things – good skills and how to edit – so view critique groups with caution. Do the people you’re sharing your work with know how to handle a first draft? Do they read and like your genre? Are they interested in helping you get, and stay, on the page; or is it a thinly veiled arena for competition and one-ups-manship? Use caution when sharing your work with other people. Even well-meaning friends can derail us, and strangers have no investment in our future. Don’t assume that just because someone offers to critique your work, that they are qualified to do so.

That said, it’s worth finding some trusted beta readers and critique partners (sometimes called in the community betas and CPs). You can poke around online at some of the online writing communities, look around the boards, and check out Meetup for some in-person groups in your area. My suggestion is, however, don’t submit your work immediately. Go to the group a few times, listen to how the critiques are done, before you give your baby manuscript to them for review. If you sense something is off, trust that sense and don’t assume “writers should just take it with a grain of salt.” That’s not true. We are sensitive creatures, and that sensitivity is what makes us effective writers. We must respect that sensitivity and not allow others to trample us in the name of literary excellence. Many a newbie writer has been silenced this way. Don’t let it happen to you.

If you haven’t read No Plot, No Problem, by NaNoWriMo’s founder Chris Baty, now is the time. Now that you’ve had a taste of NaNo and the madness of writing for 30 days and nights of literary abandon, go to the horse’s mouth to see what – and how – it all began.

Above all, realize that you’ve done something few people ever accomplish: you have in your hot little hands the first draft of a novel. This is the beginning of great things!

Welcome, Wrimos, to NaNoWriMo 2K14! This is the year to win it! That’s right, we’re going to write ALL THE WAY to 50,000 words – and we’re gonna have a ball doing it!

But what if you’re a brand new Wrimo? What if you’ve done it before but don’t quite remember how to get rolling? Never fear! ChiWriMo to the rescue!

So first, some definitions. NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month, which is every year during the month of November. To quote from NaNoWriMo HQ itself: “It’s a seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing, challenging you to write 50,000 words of a novel during the month of November. Participation is free, and ther eare no prizes or judges. The reward? The rough draft of your novel. Bragging rights. And so much more.” So here’s how to get started:

First, visit the main NaNoWriMo website and sign up. That will get you your username and an account on the international forums.

Second, set your home region. We’re assuming, since you’re visiting us here, that you’re either part of Chicago’s region, ChiWriMo, or you’re just so dazzled by our magnificence that you decided to stop by for a visit. ~grin~ We are the Windy City, after all.

Third, contribute to the cause. NaNoWriMo is completely volunteer-run and we count on each other for the funds to keep all the magnificence going year to year. Every little bit helps, so please, take a moment and check out our fundraising area.

Fourth, check out the awesomeness that is ChiWriMo! You’ve done the first part of that, by finding your way here to the website. But we’re so much more than just this site! You’ve already seen the forum, so c’mon in and introduce yourself. If you are looking for a local write-in, or want to host one, this is the place to talk about it. Here is the October chat and intro thread to get you started!

Fifth, kick off your writing month in style by joining us at the 2014 ChiWriMo Kickoff Party! We’ll be a Aje Cafe (caution, link has music) on Sunday, October 26th, at 2:00 P.M. Aje is located at 2942 N. Clark St., Chicago, IL 60657.

Sixth, keep an eye on the calendar for in person and virtual write-ins throughout the month of November. The calendar is located right on the main ChiWriMo.org page.

Seventh, extra credit if you join the group! The Facebook group, that is! Here’s the link. Please follow us @chiwrimo and use the hashtags #nanowrimo and #chiwrimo.

Eighth, DON’T PANIC! If you’re completely overwhelmed, all the action takes place on NaNoWriMo.org. If you get overwhelmed, don’t worry, that’s natural. Just go back to home base and take a deep breath. You can do this.

Remember, a good rule of thumb is no internet until you hit your daily word count goal (hint: 1,667 words). Some days, that will be all you can manage – and that’s okay. After all, this is YOUR novel, and YOUR NaNo.

You can write it.

GO CHIWRIMO!

–
“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”
- E.E. Cummings